


Seven Stars

by aderyn



Series: Deep Map [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: pubs & the Pleiades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 15:38:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This isn't the Seven Stars, the Old Bell, the Lamb & Flag, who knows the name of this place; it’s a Friday night in the 21st century,  all  the old spirits standing  by as Sherlock takes John by the back of the neck…</p>
<p>“I’ll tell you a story,” says the barman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Stars

**Author's Note:**

> for [Saki101]()

 

This isn’t the Seven Stars, the Old Bell, the Lamb & Flag, who knows the name of this place; it’s a Friday night in the 21st century, all the old spirits standing  by as Sherlock takes John by the back of the neck, puts his scalenes in a death-grip as he demonstrates for Lestrade just how he pushed his latest arrest’s face into a planter full of scarlet geraniums and made a face-print there for good measure, and John slips out of his grasp and turns the tables on him like that, laughing, saving Sherlock’s cheekbones from the tabletop with a quick palm to the sternum.

Sherlock pulls up and punches him lightly in the deltoid.

John punches him back.

The corners of their eyes crinkle identically.

Lestrade rolls his eyes and orders another.

Later, after they’ve gone, when he’s alone, when the nurse from Bart’s strolls over, sits down, offers him a drink, he’s already seen her looking at the foxfire left behind.

“I’ll tell you a story,” he says.

*******

“Oh,” the barman says, “they’ve been in here before. “

“Keen on each other, those two,” says the waitress.

Two nurses from Bart’s (NICU and cardiac step-down, beaded braids and dark bob) turn their heads, glance over at the shower of sparks, shrug.

“Maybe the third one’s unattached,” says braids.

“I’ll tell you a story,”  says the barman.

*******

They followed the fey lines with a bag of boneset and juniper, bones twisted in their hair.

They dogged a ghost through the lanes of Londinium.

They ducked out of the gaslit fog into the Seven Stars, breathing hard at a blade in the dark.

They chased a fence into an alley behind a restaurant and round to the front where Sherlock shoved his face into a planter while John doubled over with laughter mid-street and the hot blue stars, acronychal, rose overhead.

“I swear,” says the barman, winking, “by the Plough and the Pleiades.”

“This place isn’t worth the chalk it’s built on,” says the barman, “but for the stories.”

*******

People will take things just as literally as they like,thinks John.

Not this night, but another, not long ago, he dreamt they were kissing, fingers knotted in hair, grinding like teens against the smoke-scoured brick outside the oldest pub in the city (whichever that is), until the lamps broke open and he woke and he didn’t even blink.

*******

He’s blinking now, two–thirds asleep next to a tipped flask and a scorch-marked plate.

“Morning,” Sherlock says, “How’s the bruising?”

“Hmm,” says John, “You?”

“Not feeling that well. One-and-a-half too many.”

“You too?”

“I meant you.”

Sherlock hooks the flask, runs the tap, sits down, pushes the cocktail across.

“Not drinking that,” says John, taking a sip.

“You look terrible,” Sherlock says, stealing back the flask.

“You look radiant,” says John.

*****

This isn’t the Seven Bells, the Magpie & Crown, the Shovel & Boot—

 What do we call it, home, in the morning, all the old spirits awakened again.

**Author's Note:**

> “I'm amazed at the Signs  
> As I pass through the Town  
> To see the odd Mixture:  
> A Magpie and Crown  
> The Whale and the Crow  
> The Razor and Hen  
> The Leg and Seven Stars  
> The Axe and the Bottle  
> The Tun and the Lute  
> The Eagle and Child  
> The Shovel and Boot...”—from the British Apollo, early 18th century (in A.E. Richardson, The Old Inns of England, 1934)
> 
>  
> 
> [The oldest pubs in London](https://sites.google.com/site/oldestpubinlondon/home)
> 
>  
> 
> [The Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, the Seven Stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_%28star_cluster%29)
> 
>  
> 
> [Foxfire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire)
> 
>  
> 
> [Juniper at Kew Royal Botanic Gardens](http://apps.kew.org/trees/?page_id=144)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] for "Seven Stars" by Aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4963321) by [Hamstermoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamstermoon/pseuds/Hamstermoon)




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